[Avodah] Middos of the Avos

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2011 at 02:41:41PM +0300, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
: To take your second point a bit farther - is it possible that they were
: wired for the *opposite* of these middot and managed to utterly conquer
: their inherent nature? This would be an exceeding madreiga to reach -
: especially for Avraham Avinu, as he would have had to come to the logical
: conclusion of a God of Chesed even though he would have had the opposite
: leanings himself.

It also fits the midrashic Avraham, who starts out by leaving his
society's beliefs about idolatry, attacking his father's idols and
business, alienating and angering Nimrod -- and all to no effect anyway.
One could argue that Chazal are drawing a picture of someone who was an
ish emes (yeled emes?) to the point of tactlessness, and this awareness
of the Borei (and thus that olam chesed yibaneh) is what led Avram to
focus more and more of his attention on chessed.

Interesting to play with...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If you're going through hell
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